SKARS Previous Events
Jamboree on the Air
South Kesteven ARS had a fu
n-packed day at the recent JOTA event with around 50 Scouts, Cubs and Beavers from Grantham and District using the special event call sign GB1FS. Stewart Mason M0SDM, Andrew Kiddle G4HVC and Konrad Emery-Ford M0KVF logged 24 QSOs on 80m using the club FT-450D rig (last year’s prize from Waters & Stanton for winning the RSGB small club of the year ) and an OCFD.
Not a bad result, given many of them were long QSOs, not quick 59 contacts! The highlight had to be the contact with GB100GP who must have been very busy over the JOTA weekend. The team also demonstrated CW with an oscillator and helped to explain to the Scouts, Cubs and Beavers what the hobby was all about.
Cricket World Cup
SKARS was the first club to be allocated a CWC callsign – GB19TB (Trent Bridge) which will coincided with the Test Match on 6 June. SKARS Brian Hiley M0YBX and Steve Marsh 2E0WCG activated the callsign from the village of Harby between 10am to 10pm on HF, using SSB, CW and FT8 modes. Propagation was not fantastic that day, but they still managed to make a number of contacts mainly on 80m and 40m.
Winter Activation of Mam Tor
Exercise Blue Ham -
GB0WM - Woolsthorpe Manor
Operating Portable and SOTA - David Gordon G6ENN
David has held an interest in Radio since the mid 1970’s and moved on from CB radio in the early 80’s to become a licensed amateur after passing the RAE examination in 1981.
Since his first WOTA summit during Christmas 2010, David has been performing more portable operations both in the field local to his home base and when following his passion for climbing the Wainwright fells, he has activated 63 WOTA summits thus far with intention to complete the remainder of the 214 summits.
David uses his trusty Yaesu FT-270 Hand-held (with its superb water protection) and his Yaesu FT-817ND alongside home brew antennas to operate and has built homebrew 2M vertical coaxial dipoles, like the “flowerpot design”, standard dipoles and trapped dipoles which he has used to transmit from the summits and other field activations closer to home.
Due mainly to portability, power for the radios is generally supplied by using the internal battery packs of both handheld and the FT-817 but has been supported in non-hill activations by a 10Ah SLAB.
David presented his equipment which surprisingly to the audience fitted inside a medium sized back pack and an adapted tool case.
All our members at SKARS took a keen interest in David’s presentation with many topics discussed during the follow-on Q&A. South Kesteven Amateur Radio Society would like to thank David Gordon (G6ENN) for his presentation and to his wife Sue Gordon for the excellent WOTA photography.
This was David's first ever talk for a radio club and has now become a sort after talker, he can be contacted via his facebook page.
by Adam (M6OLT) Secretary